The question itself is uncomfortable. The kind of thing you’d ask a friend or relative about in hushed tones before you went to any of the three Herrington brothers.

Mike, the oldest, is all by himself now. The head coach at Hart High in Newhall and one of the loudest, most outspoken and influential voices in the growing debate over whether it’s unfair for public and private high schools to compete against each other.

Meanwhile, younger brothers Dean and Rick – both of whom coached under Mike for many years – are 12 minutes down Interstate 5 coaching at Alemany in Mission Hills.

You guessed it, one of the region’s top private schools.

Um, awkward ….

Do they talk? Give each other dirty looks? What in the heck is Thanksgiving like?

If ever an issue could drive a wedge in the famously close relationship between the region’s foremost fraternal football family,

it would be this one, right?

“Heck no, we’re fine,” said Rick, the middle of the three brothers.

“I think so. I mean, Mike still buys me lunch every day. He’s the athletic director, so he has fifth period off and can go get something for lunch. He calls me up all the time and asks if I want anything.”

After 19 seasons as Mike’s defensive coordinator at Hart, and 31 seasons of coaching at his alma mater, Rick decided it was time for a change and he joined up with younger brother Dean at Alemany. During the day though, he still works as a special education teacher at Hart.

Again, awkward … right?

“No, no,” Mike said. “It hasn’t affected us at all. We still vacation together, go golfing. We still spend a lot of time together.

“Last week they both drove up to Righetti (of Santa Maria) to watch our game. And a couple weeks ago, when we had canceled practice because of the fires, I went down and watched their practice.”

Friday nights after games, the three brothers and their respective coaching staffs still meet up at the same Chi-Chi’s restaurant on Bouquet Canyon Road in Newhall that they have for too many years to count. They even watch each other’s game film.

So Dean and Rick, after guiding Alemany to a 28-19 victory over Taft, were probably consoling Mike after his Hart squad lost to Westlake 48-21.

“He sees our games, we see his games and we’ll offer suggestions here and there,” Dean says. “We’d never play each other though. It wouldn’t be fun. We’ve never been competitive like that, even growing up.”

That, Rick says, would be awkward.

Actually, it was awkward.

“A couple of years ago we scrimmaged against each other. I was on the Hart sideline the first year and that was tough. Then the second time, I was on the Alemany side and that was even tougher.

“After the the first year, we were like, `We don’t need to do this anymore.’ But we did it again the next year and after that, we were like, `That’s it. We’re really not doing that again.”‘

OK, so relationship-wise they’re cool. But what about ideologically?

On the issue of private schools playing against public schools, Mike is still as outspoken as ever.

“The gap is getting wider and wider,” he said. “I’ve tried to explain that to the CIF office a little bit, but they kind of don’t agree.

“For example, to have St. Bonaventure (of Ventura) in a public-school league, or to have Oaks Christian (of Westlake Village) possibly going into the Marmonte League, it’s a big disadvantage for those public schools because they can’t pull from all over the place, they have to pull from their attendance boundaries.

“I keep saying, there should be separate private and public school divisions. Let them (the private schools) battle it out among themselves.”

St. Bonaventure is the school that got Herrington talking about this issue in the first place. He dropped the Seraphs from Hart’s schedule after star running back Darrell Scott transferred from Moorpark to St. Bonaventure before the 2007 season.

Then after losing to the Seraphs in the 2007 Southern Section Northern Division championship back in 2007, Herrington was quoted as saying, “They’re the only private school in our division and look what happens. … We can compete with this, but maybe not year in and year out.”

There are some who might say Mike’s feelings on the issue are the product of sour grapes. That Hart went 5-6 last year and he’s blaming that on losing athletes to private schools, or having to compete against private schools.

Actually, the opposite seems true. While Hart has lost players who reside in its attendance boundaries to private schools – even some to Alemany – by far the biggest drain has been to the two new public high schools, West Ranch and Golden Valley, that opened up in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Hart’s attendance is currently around 2,200. Before the new high schools opened, it was around 3,000.

What Herrington wants to make clear is it’s not private schools in general he has a problem with. It’s private schools competing in the same division or league against public schools, when their attendance rules are different.

Private schools can draw students from anywhere, public schools can only draw from their geographic boundaries.

In Mike’s eyes, it’s an advantage for private schools, one that is being exacerbated by the increased coverage and exposure of high school football by Internet Web sites, television stations and print media.

“I think a lot of it is because of the media, especially television,” he said. “Games are on Fox or ESPN and they broadcast those games because there are going to be future college athletes in them.

“So you have a private school that has two or three big-time recruits, they get broadcast, and another kid is like, `Hey, I’m a big-time athlete. Why don’t I go to one of those schools too?”‘

Suffice to say, Mike’s opinion is pretty well-entrenched. But do Dean and Rick have a different viewpoint from the other side of the aisle? Not really.

If anything, both seem to understand their older brother’s concerns, though they stop short of sharing his outrage.

“He’s not feeling sorry for himself,” Dean said. “But when you have one private school in your division and they win it every year, it’s frustrating.”

Rick, who was the defensive coordinator on the 2007 Hart team that lost to St. Bonaventure, couldn’t help but be blunt.

“I can see where he (Mike) is coming from,” Rick said. “When I was at Hart, they’d do an article on a kid at (a private school) and I’d go nuts. I’d be like, `Why are they talking about Santa Clarita kids that are leaving the Valley to go there?’

“Now I just sit back and keep my mouth shut. There’s not a whole lot you can do about it.”